Shields

I find but little safety from my shield.
Nature's, not honour's, law we must obey:
This made me cast my useless shield away,
And by a prudent flight and cunning save
A life, which valour could not, from the grave.
A better buckler I can soon regain;
But who can get another life again?”
-Archilochos. 7th cent. B.C. trans. William H. Goodwin, 1878.

Shields are a kind of armour worn in one hand, preventing the use of two handed weapons, which use the Shields skill. Unlike other armour, shields increase a character's SH defense, giving you a chance at blocking physical (and some magical) attacks entirely. Certain spells can also grant you an SH score.

Contents

Shield Penalties

Wearing a shield also gives penalties to attack speed, attack damage, and spellcasting, along with EV penalties of -1 (buckler), -3 (shield), or -5 (large shield). While the penalty for wearing a small buckler is almost negligible, a large shield can seriously slow your attacks and make spellcasting unreliable. Sufficient Shields skill will reduce or even negate these penalties, but the amount needed varies by race:

If you are wearing a shield, wielding a one-handed weapon, and your Shield penalty is greater than zero, the game throws two dice with (Shield penalty) sides. The smaller one is added to your delay.

The penalty for unarmed combat is like the penalty for one-handed weapons, but your delay is increased by one aut, 50% of the time, regardless of your Shield penalty.

The penalty for using a shield with a bow, longbow and crossbow is an increased attack delay: +25% for bucklers / +50% for shields / +100% for large shields. This penalty can be halved with 27 levels in the Shields skill becoming: +12.5%/+25%/+50%. Slings and throwing don't suffer any kind of penalty.

If you are wearing a 0 EVP armour, you need less shield skill to eliminate just the casting penalties:

Blocking

Effect

It's possible to block a melee attack if you wear a shield of some kind or are under the effect of a magical shield (the Helm card's Magic Shield, the Ice Magic spell Condensation Shield, or the Shining One's Divine Shield). Ranged attacks can be blocked only with physical shields, like bucklers, shields, large shields or the Large Bones Plates mutation. The Shining One's Divine Shield will only help you block missiles if you already have a physical shield of some kind. Your ability to block missiles doesn't benefit from spells like Repel Missiles or Deflect Missiles. If the attacker's pierce value is less than the defender's blocking value, the attack does no damage. Shield blocking is done before rolling your evasion or your AC, but if you have already blocked some attacks in that turn, your blocking ability will be decreased greatly.

All melee attacks can be blocked (except a successful stabbing), but many ranged attacks are unblockable:

For a physical shield (Buckler, Shield and Large Shield), Block is the shield's blocking value, equal to the base shield bonus (3 for Buckler, 8 for Shield, 13 for Large Shield), modified by a size factor:

Beogh bonus increases with Piety. This additional bonus maxes out at +10 when you reach 160 Piety.

Stat bonus is 0.38×DEX for bucklers (you get +1SH for every 2.6 points of DEX) , 0.19×STR + 0.19×DEX for shields (you get +1SH for every 5.3 points of DEX or STR), and 0.26×STR + 0.12×DEX for large shields (you get +1SH for every 3.9 points of STR or 8.3 points of DEX).

The Shinining One's Divine shield bonus is 4.5 + 0.3×Shield skill. Your stat bonus will be increased to (9 + 0.6×Shield skill) if it was smaller.